Conan the Cimmerian
Platform: Amiga 500
Region: Europe
Media: Floppy
Controller: Mouse, Keyboard or Joystick
Genre: Adventure - Action - Fantasy
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1991
Developer: Synergistic Software, Inc.
Publisher: Virgin Games, Inc.
Players: 1
Hardware: OCS, ECS
Conversions: PC (DOS)
Disks: 4
Programmer: James David Walley
Musician: Chris Barker
Designer: Jonathan Sposato
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Conan: The Cimmerian was living happily as a blacksmith with his wife in the village of Irskuld, Cimmeria...until one fateful day. A group of horsemen raided his village...Conan was knocked unconscious, awakening only to find his wife and his friends butchered in the aftermath. Conan discovers architect of the slaughter was a wizard named Thoth Amon, a high priest of Cult of Set. Sword in hand, vengeance aflame, Conan now travels south in the land of Hyborea to the city of Shadizar. Here his journey of vengeance begins...

Conan: The Cimmerian is an action-adventure game with some RPG elements. The game is divided into 3 areas. The first is the overland map, where Conan may travel only between identifiable town and other locations. The second is the town map, here Conan is viewed in a horizontal 3rd Person and the last is the combat screen (or when he enters houses) where Conan is viewed in vertical 3rd Person. Conan may also view his character status and inventory sheet, anytime during the course of the game.

Gameplay consists of exploration and combat. The exploration element in the game sets Conan to find his way around towns and hidden locations, often breaking in houses and searching the premises for hidden loot. Towns consist of various places to visit, among others temples which usually offer quests, shops offering weapons and other items, and inns to stay for a health boost. NPC’s may be conversed with to seek information, while the tougher-looking types may be provoked into combat.

Combat is real-time, one-on-one with Conan on the left and the opponent on the right, consisting of only movement to the left or right and attacking. There are no defensive maneuvers. Both must now keep on attacking until the health bar of either side drops to zero. If Conan wins, he may search the remains and may find loot. At the beginning of the game, Conan may only use one sword style (swing) out of three available sword styles. Additional sword styles may be trained by a sword master.

Trivia

Conan: The Cimmerian is based on the tales of Conan, The Barbarian, the most famous character created by Robert E. Howard who made his first appearance on the 1932 story "The Phoenix on the Sword" published in the "Weird Tales" literary magazine. Over the years Conan grew as a cult icon even past Howard's death mostly thanks to the 60's hardcover reprints of the original stories with lush cover paintings by the great Frank Frazetta, which account for most of the character's fame and started the trend of elaborate fantasy illustrations for these types of novels.

To this day Conan remains a successful and influential figure whom most people may remember from 1981's "Conan: The Barbarian" film starring an unknown Austrian bodybuilder by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first major role and which spawned a sequel, a spin-off (also with Arnie) and countless clones and imitators. Produced by Dino de Laurentis and directed by John Milius, Conan became a sensational hit in it's day and stands today as arguably the finest movie in the medieval-fantasy genre and the best adaptation of the character and his mythos, which spawn comic books, post-howard novels, cartoons and videogames.

Useless fun fact: Howard wrote all of his over 20 Conan stories between 1932 and 1935, year in which he commited suicide!


http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/conan-the-cimmerian
